A makeshift memorial outside of the District Office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) on Sunday. The sign sends this message: “violence solves nothing; love is greater than hate.”
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January 9, 2011

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) has raised concerns about the effect of inflammatory language that has become a steady undercurrent in the nation’s political culture.

Saturday’s shooting spree, which killed U.S. District Judge John M. Roll and five others, followed years of hot political debate in Arizona. Both Roll and Giffords had been the subjects of threats in recent years.

Arizona has become one of the most reliably conservative states, particularly in the debates over immigration and health care — two issues that put Giffords, a moderate Democrat, and Roll at odds with many Arizonans.

Members of Congress and other elected officials say violent threats occasionally come with the job, but many politicians and others assert that the shootings reflect a national political culture that has become too heated and rife with instigation to violence.

“Hopefully this gives the nation pause, and we can temper down the vitriol toward politicians,” Rep. John Larson (D-CT) told reporters outside his home Saturday night. In a news conference Sunday, Larson said Democratic and Republican lawmakers this week will discuss taking new safety precautions, such as requesting a local police presence when they make official appearances in their districts.

In the Senate last year, the number of significant threats directed at members increased to 49 from 29 in 2009, according to the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms.

An April 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center found “a perfect storm of conditions” contributing to Americans’ distrust of government, including “a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.”

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, says inflammatory political rhetoric has risen as a result of the immigration debate. And more recently, he says, the weak economy and the election of President Obama have led to a 50 percent increase in the number of so-called hate groups.

“Earlier in the decade, it was paramilitary groups and nativists who were reacting to illegal immigration,” Potok said. “But then you have the first black president and the economy, which just exacerbates the feeling among some whites that they are losing opportunities, or losing their country.

“Now you’re seeing a cross-fertilization between those groups from the early 2000s and the people who are upset over Obama and the economy.”

Some lawmakers remain circumspect about drawing such conclusions. Giffords’ colleague from Arizona, Republican Rep. Trent Franks, declined to say Sunday whether he believes the shootings were motivated in any part by heightened vitriol in public discourse.

The central element here is this unhinged lunatic that had no respect for innocent human life [who] was willing to make some grand statement. I don’t even know if he understands what statement he was trying to make.

– Arizona Rep. Trent Franks

“The central element here is this unhinged lunatic that had no respect for innocent human life [who] was willing to make some grand statement. I don’t even know if he understands what statement he was trying to make,” Franks said on CNN’s State of the Union. “There is really the central problem — a lack for respect for human life.”

Political Fallout In Congress

Lawmakers in both parties over the weekend avoided speculating about any political fallout from the shooting.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) decided to suspend legislative activity scheduled for this week, a move that at least temporarily prevents another potential escalation in the debate over the health care law. That issue has led to previous threats against Giffords and stirred much of the vitriol characterizing politics over the past two years.

Repealing the health care law is one of the Republicans’ top priorities in the new session. The measure is all but assured of passage in the Republican House and rejection by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

In a news conference Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said the incident should remind his colleagues that their job “comes with a risk.” However, he said, “No act … must be allowed to stop us from our duty.”

Security personnel aren’t assigned to House members, and many lawmakers say they likely won’t scale back their public appearances. Often, though, large events in House members’ districts do include a local police presence.

Protecting lawmakers has become more difficult in the past decade, said William Pickle, a former Senate sergeant-at-arms. Appearing Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, he said the availability of information on the Internet can guide would-be plotters — even as demands for lawmakers to make public appearances have increased.

“The very nature of being a public official is one where you have to press the flesh. You want as much exposure as you can possibly have. That’s not going to end,” Pickle said. “We are going to fall back into being complacent again. I hate to say that, but we will. We do not have the resources to protect 535 congressmen and senators.”

Pickle, also a retired Secret Service agent who once oversaw the protection of Vice President Al Gore, added that the threats are “impossible to stop. Until candidates stop campaigning, these things tragically are going to continue happening.”

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain people’s mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.

– Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik

Feeling The Heat In Arizona

Some Arizona politicians from both parties say the incident demonstrates the need to defuse their state’s highly charged discourse.

The health care overhaul has been a flashpoint for Giffords’ constituents. In August 2009, when opponents of the health care bill held demonstrations across the nation, a protester at one of Giffords’ events was removed by police when a pistol he had holstered under his armpit dropped to the floor.

Last March, after the bill passed — with Giffords’ support — the windows of her Tucson office were broken or shot out by vandals. Similar acts of vandalism against other members of Congress were also reported, including a controversial allegation that a Tea Party demonstrator spat on an African-American congressman while other demonstrators shouted racial epithets. Tea Party leaders have challenged those claims.

But in Arizona, the most divisive issue has been immigration. Arizona is home to many of the staunchest opponents of citizenship for illegal immigrants. It also has the nation’s toughest law aimed at identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat and friend of Giffords, lambasted his home state on Saturday as “the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

“When you look at unbalanced people,” Dupnik said, referring to accused shooter Jared Lee Loughner, “how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain people’s mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.”

Last year, Dupnik vowed that his deputies wouldn’t enforce the state’s new immigration law, calling it “racist” and “unnecessary.”

Also last year, Dupnik accused Tea Party activists of bigotry and stifling rational debate on immigration — adding that, “We didn’t have a Tea Party until we had a black president.”

Arizona Tea Party leaders vehemently denied Dupnik’s accusations and noted that they didn’t take a public position on the immigration law. On Saturday, local Tea Party leaders released statements expressing condolences to the shooting victims’ families. They also sought to distance their groups from any suggestion that Loughner was a Tea Party activist or that his attack was politically motivated.

Giffords narrowly won a third term in November against Jesse Kelly, a Republican backed by the Tea Party. Last June, Kelly held an event promoted with the message: “Get on Target for Victory in November … Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office … Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

“They’re jumping to this conclusion that it has to do with [Giffords’] hotly contested Congressional race,” Allyson Miller, a founder of Pima County Tea Party Patriots, told the website TalkingPointsMemo. “Well, apparently, from what I’ve seen so far … it’s looking like that’s not the case.”

Miller and other Tea Party leaders said they won’t change their aggressive tactics in the wake of the shootings.

The Cross Hairs Controversy

During the midterm elections, Giffords and other Democratic House candidates were featured on the website of Sarah Palin’s political action committee with cross hairs over their districts. Giffords, disturbed at the reference, said at the time, “When people do that, they have got to realize there’s consequences to that.”

In a Sunday interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce, Rebecca Mansour, who works for Palin’s PAC, said the images of cross hairs weren’t intended to evoke violence: “We never, ever, ever intended it to be gun sights,” she said.

The images were removed from the website this weekend.

On Sunday, President Obama ordered flags at federal buildings to be flown at half-staff. He postponed his trip to a General Electric facility in New York scheduled for Tuesday.

He also called on the country to join him Monday at 11 a.m. ET in observing a moment of silence for the shooting victims.

“It will be a time for us to come together as a nation in prayer or reflection, keeping the victims and their families closely at heart,” the president said in a statement.

In recent weeks, Nobel prizewinner Liu Xiaobo’s politics have been reduced to a story of a heroic individual who upholds human rights and democracy. His views are largely omitted to avoid a discussion about them, resulting in a one-sided debate. Within three weeks, in Hong Kong, for example, more than 500 articles were published about Liu, of which only 10 were critical of the man or peace prize.

In China, before the award, most people neither knew nor cared about Liu, while, according to Andrew Jacobs, writing in the International Herald Tribune, an “official survey of university students taken since the prize was awarded found that 85% said they knew nothing about Mr Liu and Charter ’08.” A Norwegian Sinologist has elicited comments from Chinese people and indicated that younger Chinese still do not care about Liu. Older Chinese intellectuals are interested in discussing the award, but many do not think Liu is an appropriate recipient.

Imprisoning Liu was entirely unnecessary. If Liu’s politics were well-known, most people would not favour him for a prize, because he is a champion of war, not peace. He has endorsed the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and he applauded the Vietnam and Korean wars retrospectively in a 2001 essay. All these conflicts have entailed massive violations of human rights. Yet in his article Lessons from the Cold War, Liu argues that “The free world led by the US fought almost all regimes that trampled on human rights … The major wars that the US became involved in are all ethically defensible.” During the 2004 US presidential election, Liu warmly praised George Bush for his war effort against Iraq and condemned Democratic party candidate John Kerry for not sufficiently supporting the US’s wars:

[T]he outstanding achievement made by Bush in anti-terrorism absolutely cannot be erased by Kerry’s slandering … However much risk must be endured in striking down Saddam Hussein, know that no action would lead to a greater risk. This has been proven by the second world war and September 11! No matter what, the war against Saddam Hussein is just! The decision by President Bush is right!

Liu has also one-sidedly praised Israel’s stance in the Middle East conflict. He places the blame for the Israel/Palestine conflict on Palestinians, who he regards as “often the provocateurs”.

Liu has also advocated the total westernisation of China. In a 1988 interview he stated that “to choose westernisation is to choose to be human”. He also faulted a television documentary, He Shang, or River Elegy, for not thoroughly criticising Chinese culture and not advocating westernisation enthusiastically enough: “If I were to make this I would show just how wimpy, spineless and fucked-up [weisuo, ruanruo, caodan] the Chinese really are”. Liu considered it most unfortunate that his monolingualism bound him in a dialogue with something “very benighted [yumei] and philistine [yongsu],” the Chinese cultural sphere. Harvard researcher Lin Tongqi noted that an early 1990s book by Liu contains “pungent attacks on the Chinese national character”. In a well-known statement of 1988, Liu said:

It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is. Given the size of China, certainly it would need 300 years of colonisation for it to become like what Hong Kong is today. I even doubt whether 300 years would be enough.

Affirming this sentiment in Open magazine in 2006, he added that progress in China depends on westernisation and the more westernisation, the more progress. While his supporters excuse Liu’s pro-colonialism as a provocation, it logically aligns with his support for total westernisation and US-led regime changing wars.

Liu, in his “Charter ’08”, called for a Western-style political system in China and privatisation of all enterprises and farm land. Not surprisingly, the organisations he has headed received financial support from the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy. Studies show, however, that where transitions to electoral democracy occur in countries with low levels of average wealth, the rule of law does not necessarily follow, but instability and low levels of development do. Neither does electoral democracy deliver good governance, nor even sustain itself under such conditions.

Nowhere in the post-communist or developing world has there been the fair privatisation Liu claims to seek. Privatisation in eastern Europe often led to massive thefts of public property by oligarchs and became deeply unpopular, with strong majorities of people in all post-Communist countries wanting its revision. Privatisation is also disliked in India, Latin America and China itself, while studies of privatisation in many parts of the world show it can have a deleterious effect on development. Land privatisation in China would rapidly create land concentration and landless peasants.

Forty years ago, a Nobel prize committee upheld formerly imprisoned writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a symbol of freedom against the Soviet regime. As with Liu, it may have been unaware of or chose to ignore Solzhenitsyn’s classically reactionary views: his own version of authoritarianism, an animus toward Jews, denunciation of the US for not pursuing the war in Vietnam more vigorously, condemnation of Amnesty International as too liberal, and support for the Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco.

The Nobel peace prize is a prize for politics of certain kind. The Norwegian Nobel Institute director has noted that the Nobel Committee has most often selected “those who had spoken out … against the Communist dictators in Moscow and the dictators in Beijing.” French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre recognized the Nobel prizes’ role in the Cold war and refused to accept one in 1964. He stated: “In the present situation, the Nobel Prize stands objectively as a distinction reserved for the writers of the West or the rebels of the East.” That role has been continued with Liu’s prize.

June 27, 2010

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (CNN) — Helmet under her arm, Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh arrives after traveling 450 kilometers by motorbike, evading the security police, to tell CNN the story of her imprisonment for blogging in Vietnam.

“The first three days I was scared for myself,” she said about her 10 days in prison, during which officers repeatedly asked her about her writing and if she received cash from anti-government groups outside the country.

Vietnamese like Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh are embracing the internet in full force. There are 24 million internet users right now, nearly a third of the population. A decade ago there were 200,000. Internet cafes have popped up all over Ho Chi Minh City, and social networking sites are increasing in popularity along with mobile internet use.

“Internet life grows so fast,” said a popular blogger, who requested anonymity out of concerns for his safety. “Even I, one of the bloggers, could not imagine how fast this could be.

“And nearly everyone, each Vietnamese, has their own blog.”

Like elsewhere, most Vietnamese blogs deal with life, work, humor or technology. But a group of bloggers here also focus on a more dangerous territory in this one-party Communist state: They write about local corruption, land seizures and the increasing influence of China. They complain about the lack of multiparty democracy, too.

In a nutshell, they blog about the sort of issues that can get you into deep trouble in today’s Vietnam.

This is something that Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh — who blogs under the Vietnamese pen name Me Nam or Mother Mushroom — knows well.

Her blog includes writings about her daily life and pictures of her young daughter, but she also expresses her outspoken views against China’s intervention in her country, including Beijing’s financing of a controversial bauxite mine in the Central Highlands.

Those views led to her arrest and imprisonment for ten days in August, for, she said, “abuse of democratic freedoms and infringing on the national benefit.”

When I first got in touch with Nguyen nearly a year later, her phone and movements were still being monitored. E-mail, I had been told, was the best way to get in touch.

“I am willing to tell my story to you,” she wrote to me, saying she would travel from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City to meet us.

Twelve hours later, she sent another e-mail. “Can you sure filming is OK and safe for us?” She feared the security police would prevent her from coming, but she would try.

The next day she arrived, and over the next two hours she told her story.

“I did not know what happened. But the fourth and fifth and the sixth day when they asked me the same questions, I was scared for my mom and my daughter and my husband. I didn’t want to think about them when I was put in prison, because if I ever think about them I wanted to give everything to come to my family.”

As a condition of her release, she agreed to give up blogging, posting a handwritten letter on her site in which she explained that she loved her country, but that the government felt this was the wrong way. After being denied a passport two months later though, she decided to begin again.

“I write another entry on my blog, that I gave up already, but they didn’t leave me alone,” she said. “I have to take the right to say what I think.”

What does she think the government will do if they see her telling her story on CNN?

“I think that they have to think about this,” she said. “Because I just tell the truth … If they arrest me again because I send a message outside to the world, I am not scared. This means that they show to (the) world that we don’t have freedom like they say.”

When contacted by CNN about its policy on freedom of expression on the internet, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry provided the following written response.

“In Vietnam, freedom of information and freedom of speech are guaranteed and practiced in accordance with the law. Such concern as ‘government threatens free expression online and an open internet’ is groundless.”

Nguyen and I have been keeping in touch by e-mail since her story aired on CNN International television one week ago.

“Thank you so much for the film …,” she wrote me on Saturday. “Thank you for coming to report about our country.”

And at the bottom of her automatic signature, the same as on every e-mail I have received from her, it read: “Who will speak if you don’t?”

May 31, 2010

Multimillionaire businessman Prayudh Mahagitsiri is now No. 21 on the latest installment of an expanding financial blacklist issued by the Center for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation, a body handling Thailand’s gravest political crisis since the founding of the modern Thai state in 1932.

Prayudh, along with 151 other businessmen, politicians, lawyers and other alleged financiers of “red shirt” protests, has seen his bank accounts frozen and been ordered to report details of all financial transactions since September to authorities. The aim, said an emergency decree signed by Gen. Anupong Paochinda, is to root out threats to “national security and the safety of citizens” and “get rid of this problem effectively and immediately.”
…
“They are tightening the noose,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. Arrests, censorship and the financial inquest have put Thailand on “a slippery slope,” he said, adding: “The creeping fear is that this could become a witch hunt. The question is: Who is next?”

Noppadon Pattama, a former foreign minister whose bank accounts have been frozen, denounced the financial probe as “clearly politically motivated.” Like many on the financial blacklist, Noppadon is close to Thaksin.

The government denied engaging in a political vendetta. The money probe, said spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn, is “not a tool for political conflict” but a response to a security threat. “People who have nothing to hide have nothing to worry about,” said Panitan, a political scientist who taught for a time at Johns Hopkins University.
Twenty companies, most of them owned by relatives or close associates of Thaksin, are also under investigation. Like individuals on the list, they are barred from making bank, stock, insurance or other transactions without government permission. Authorities have made public no evidence of wrongdoing and have stumbled over details: One blacklisted company closed years ago.

Thailand’s business community, like the rest of the country, is bitterly divided.

When Bangkok lurched toward anarchy last week, mostly pro-Thaksin red shirts turned with fury on property owned by rich families they viewed as hostile or lukewarm to their movement. Police stood by as rioters torched branches of Bangkok Bank and the country’s biggest shopping mall, CentralWorld.

The arson attacks mirrored, albeit with far more violence, a campaign launched in early 2006 by opponents of Thaksin to boycott businesses close to the then prime minister. Six months later, the military removed Thaksin and set up a commission to investigate his business network.
That investigation began a long effort to choke off Thaksin’s money. It climaxed in February when Thailand’s Supreme Court confiscated $1.4 billion of frozen Thaksin assets. The court ruling allowed him to keep about $900 million. Soon after the court decision, red shirts began mobilizing for an occupation of downtown Bangkok.

Sean Boonpracong, a former resident of Herndon, Va., who helped lead the red shirt invasion, said after release from military interrogation over the weekend that protesters got $130,000 a day — far less than official estimates — from “friends of Thaksin” for food, generator fuel and other supplies. He denied that any had been used to buy weapons, adding that red shirts discussed setting up an armed wing but rejected the idea.

Some of those on the blacklist sympathized with the red shirt cause, which boiled down to a demand that the government quit and call early elections that would possibly return Thaksin’s allies to power. A shopping center owned by one targeted businessman leased space to a host of now-defunct red shirt ventures, including an anti-government TV station, a journal called Red News, the Red Cafe and also the Red Shop, filled with Thaksin dolls, Thaksin T-shirts and books praising Thaksin.

Other tycoons suffered heavy losses from the turmoil they’re accused of bankrolling. Particularly hard hit was Panlert Baiyoke, owner of the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, an 88-story Bangkok landmark with 658 guest rooms. The hotel had just one guest last week. This week it had 20.

Prayudh, the coffee maker and chief executive of a steel venture called Thainox Stainless, declined to comment on allegations that he helped fund the protesters.

The government has given no evidence of misbehavior by Prayudh other than a long association with Thaksin. The corporate headquarters of Thainox displays a 2001 photo of Prayudh receiving a business award from Thaksin.

Prayudh made his first big money from a coffee joint venture set up in 1972 with the Swiss multinational Nestle. Nophadol Siwabur, director of corporate affairs for Nestle in Thailand, said the blacklist “is essentially a private matter for Mr. Prayudh.” Nestle, he added, “keeps a strict neutrality in political matters.”

This hasn’t helped Nestle escape the consequences of politics: Its Bangkok offices were in CentralWorld, the shopping and office plaza torched by protesters.

WASHINGTON—Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is lobbying hard to kill a provision in financial industry overhaul legislation requiring big banks to sell off their derivatives-trading businesses, and rival banks are welcoming the help, shrugging off attacks on the firm by lawmakers and securities regulators.

Goldman’s lobbying could put Democrats and the White House, which is lukewarm on the provision, in a difficult position. With congressional elections looming in November, lawmakers don’t want to appear supportive of Goldman or Wall Street.

But Goldman’s leadership is less concerned about politics than the provision itself, known as “section 106.” The nation’s five largest banks together earned $23 billion from derivatives trading in 2009, and are working separately and together to defeat the provision.

“I don’t think political Kabuki theatre is having any impact on the ability to get meetings and be heard” in Congress, says a person familiar with Goldman’s strategy. “The point of the matter from their standpoint is they can be heard…Nobody’s being treated like lepers.”

A non-Goldman banking executive agreed that working together to kill the provision was a “no-brainer.”

“I’m running across hordes of Goldman lobbyists working on this,” said a lobbyist working the bill on Capitol Hill.

Kirsten Gillibrand

Late Wednesday some lawmakers predicted section 106 wouldn’t be included in the final legislation, although the final outcome isn’t certain. The Senate is expected to begin debate on the bill to overhaul regulation of financial derivatives Thursday.

The White House has been lukewarm on the section-106 provision. A source familiar with the White House’s deliberations on the matter said that the president pulled back other administration officials who wanted to work to drop it.

Goldman is focusing its efforts on congressional delegations from New York and New Jersey, whose region could lose significant tax revenue should the derivatives provision pass.

Key to bankers’ effort to defeat the provision, three people involved say, is lobbying by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Business Roundtable, and Financial Services Forum.

Goldman and other big banks have gotten the ear of New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who says she has “concerns” about a central provision in the legislation.

“The senator reiterated her support for the bill, which she voted for, but also shared these concerns,” said Matt Canter, Mrs. Gillibrand’s spokesman.

“Our office has been hearing from many New York companies and consumer organizations about this legislation,” a spokesman for Ms. Gillibrand said Wednesday. “Senator Gillibrand does share the president’s concerns about whether this one provision could impact lending to small businesses.”

Ms. Gillibrand, also fighting for her seat in November, is attending a fund-raising event on Monday with many longtime Democratic backers who also work on Wall Street. An invitation to the event offers “a political discussion” with Sen. Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) and Ms. Gillibrand at a private Park Avenue residence Monday. Donors are encouraged to contribute and solicit up to $19,800 to achieve “host” status. The person familiar with Goldman’s strategy said the firm wouldn’t rule out sending a representative to the event.

Goldman Sachs has ramped up its presence its Washington lobbying operation in recent years and now ranks among the top corporate spenders on lobbyists. Last year, the company spent at least $2.8 million to influence Congress and the Obama administration.

That’s more than double the $1.2 million that Goldman spent on lobbying just four years ago, according to lobbying-expenditure records compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Goldman’s Washington operations are run by Michael Paese, a former aide to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.). Mr. Paese oversees a team that includes 14 outside lobbying firms encompassing dozens of lobbyists. In the last few years, Goldman has beefed up its ranks of Democratic lobbyists, including former Rep. Richard Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat who once was one of the top Democrats in the U.S. House.

The firm also employs a number of senior Republican lobbyists, including Ken Duberstein, a former White House chief of staff under former President Ronald Reagan.

Goldman is also a big source of campaign donations for both Democrats and Republicans. Since 1989, Goldman’s political action committee and employees have been the No. 1 corporate source of campaign donations to the Democratic Party with a total of $20.3 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. President Obama alone received about $1 million from Goldman employees for his 2008 presidential campaign.

The company and employees are also the fourth-largest source of political donations to Republicans with $11 million.

The SEC’s lawsuit has damaged some of the relationships Goldman has nurtured, including with Ms. Lincoln, chief mover behind derivatives provision.

Ms. Lincoln, who is facing a stiff re-election campaign from a Democratic primary challenger, proposed the derivatives legislation on April 9, the same day that the SEC announced its lawsuits against Goldman.

Just a few weeks ago, Mrs. Lincoln was in discussions with Goldman officials about hosting a fund raising in New York with company employees. She has since said she would no longer ask for campaign donations from Goldman or its employees.

Last week, Mrs. Lincoln overcame industry opposition and won enough votes in the Agriculture Committee to approve the new derivatives rules. This week, she became the first Democratic senator to give back the donations she has received from Goldman’s PAC and employees. Mrs. Lincoln said she would donate the $7,500 she accepted from Goldman and give it to the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. In a press release, Mrs. Lincoln called on other senators to follow her lead.

ZURICH—The Swiss government proposed tougher taxes on bank bonuses in order to shore up parliamentary support for a bill that would allow Bern to meet its obligations in last year’s settlement of a tax case with the U.S. government.

One proposal would compel companies to classify bonuses as a distribution of profits, rather than as personnel expenses. That way, the company would pay taxes on bonuses even if it posted a loss.

Employees receiving the bonuses wouldn’t, however, see any change to the taxes they pay on them, in contrast to the one-time tax on bonuses levied recently in the U.K.

…

In February, the Swiss government presented an ad hoc law that would lay the legal groundwork for it to hand over to the IRS the names of thousands of U.S. taxpayers who had secret accounts with UBS. Parliament is expected to vote on the bill in June, so that Bern can hand over the names by an August deadline.

That law has been deadlocked in parliament after some Swiss parties demanded the government restrain banker bonuses and strengthen capital rules for UBS and Credit Suisse Group as a solution to the “too big to fail” dilemma.

The debate over bonuses in Switzerland heated up again after UBS paid its top investment bankers huge bonuses for 2009 even as the bank posted a large loss. Soon after, Credit Suisse Chief Executive Brady Dougan cashed in options valued at more than 70 million Swiss francs ($64.4 million).

Switzerland moved more quickly than many countries in requiring companies to subject bonuses to claw-back provisions and to pay out some variable compensation over a number of years, but there is popular pressure to do more. The bonus measures presented Wednesday also include a provision to tax employee stock options at the time they are exercised, instead of when granted. The government didn’t indicate how much money its proposals could raise.

BULIISA, Uganda—One of Africa’s biggest nature parks has turned into a battleground over oil, pitting foreign energy companies and the government of Uganda against environmentalists eager to shed light on their venture.

Oil companies led by London-listed Tullow Oil PLC have found oil reserves estimated to hold up to two billion barrels in the Albertine Rift Valley, which contains Murchison Falls National Park. The park is one of Uganda’s biggest tourism draws and home to elephants, giraffes, lions and rare birds.

More

Tullow’s project, which contains one of Africa’s biggest onshore oil finds in decades, is seen as crucial to the Central African nation’s economy as the government attempts to diversify away from tourism and rely less on foreign aid. The government has given a Tullow consortium the green light to explore and drill in the park.

“As much as we need to protect the environment, oil is an important resource for the country if properly managed,” said Aryamanya Mugisha, the executive director of Uganda’s state-run National Environmental Management Authority, or NEMA.

That stance has irked environmentalists and villagers who benefit from park tourism. Protected areas support over 80% of Uganda’s tourism industry and bring in about $600 million a year in revenue, according to official estimates.

Big oil and environmentalists have never had an easy relationship, but tensions in Uganda run especially high. Civil society groups say that many of the government’s decisions surrounding oil have been shrouded in secrecy and that details of Tullow project, including any clear plan to minimize its environmental impact, haven’t been disclosed.

Environmentalists have put pressure on the government to disclose its production-sharing agreement by filing several lawsuits in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Production-sharing contracts aren’t normally made public.

“The [Ugandan] government is totally uninterested in preserving the wildlife,” says Jacqueline Weaver, a University of Houston law professor specializing in oil industry law and contracts, who has visited Uganda and consulted with the government, oil companies and civil-society groups on oil contracts there. “Money will win over animals every time.”

Tullow is one of the world’s largest independent oil companies, with a $16.5 billion market capitalization and a string of recent Africa successes, including a big Ghana offshore discovery. In Uganda, it has begun drilling appraisal wells and expects commercial production to start next year.

To shoulder the project’s financial burden, Tullow has enlisted France’s Total SA and China’s CNOOC Ltd., each of which will take a third in a joint venture, say Ugandan officials.

Tullow Vice President Tim O’Hanlon told executives at an industry conference last week that the company expects the Ugandan government to approve the new partnership, valued at an estimated $5 billion investment over five years, “within weeks.”

Production in three Uganda oil blocks 100%-owned by Tullow—including one that covers some park land—is expected to reach around 150,000 barrels a day by 2015, Tullow has said. African oil giants Nigeria and Angola produce about two million barrels a day.

Mr. Mugisha, the environmental regulator, said Tullow doesn’t submit plans for proposed activities on time but has pressed NEMA to approve projects quickly following the discovery of oil reserves. He says the government’s rush led to regulatory lapses, such as not ensuring proper disposal of wastewater or drill cuttings, which can lead to pollution of nearby bodies of water which are frequented by locals, livestock and wild animals. The regulatory agency said Tullow hasn’t yet put in place an oil-spill contingency plan ahead of extended well testing.

NEMA is a semi-autonomous body under the Ministry of Water and Environment, and can withhold approval of drilling projects if impact assessment reports are deemed insufficient.

Tullow says it has established an environmental-management department and submitted a comprehensive environmental-impact assessment report to address shortfalls cited by the regulator. It aims to manage and dispose of wastewater and drill cuttings as well as restore grasslands at drilling sites.

“Tullow is aware of the sensitivity involved in working in wildlife reserve areas,” said Paul Coward, a company environmental manager. “We want to build the oil and gas sector in Uganda and that means building the people as well.”

The Ugandan government says it hasn’t disclosed details about oil contracts because it’s bound by confidentiality clauses. Tullow says it would be willing to reveal more details of its drilling program and contracts, but the Ugandan government has refused to do so.

The oil venture rankles some. “I think some [local government officials] are very excited about oil and don’t have the foresight to consider what future effects oil might have on the community,” said Blasio Mugase, 70, a local chief of the Bunyoro ethnic group, who was wearing a Tullow hat. “The income we’re getting from [Murchison] is great. The government can’t expect oil money to come and replace game parks.”

Akelo Oliver, a fisherwoman on the shores of Lake Albert on the outskirts of Buliisa, stacked the day’s haul of tilapia in piles to dry under the sun. Behind her an oil rig rose into the sky. Ms. Oliver said the sound of the rig is a combination of a dog’s howl and a generator’s whirr.

“We don’t sleep,” she said. “No one has talked to me or told me about what they’re doing.”

Oversight of oil projects in nature reserves will most likely end up in the hands of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, local officials say. The UWA, a semi-autonomous body set up by an act of parliament in 1996, says it has already run into difficulties.